They came today. So, these are clearly the Seacons, though the pictures online have all the colors exactly as they come on the toys in this pack. They are not identical to the originals, which kind of sucks. They are certainly "good enough" and if you're lucky enough to have an old junker Snaptrap around, you should be able to swap the turquoise "new" head for the black original one. I will be attempting this if it's possible to do so without screwing up all the labels which are, unfortunately, ALREADY APPLIED. Fuckers.

One of the most enjoyable part of getting a G1 toy for me was placing the stickers on. Now, if I want to do it myself (and I WILL do a better job than the factory people do), I'll have to buy a set from Reprolabels ($14 later). I may do it anyway since the labels that come with the set are somewhat subpar in my opinion. I know I can trust Reprolables' stuff to stay put once applied.

Other than that, I'd say the set comes across as a high quality bootleg. It's good, and at least it's official, but the mold has clearly seen its better days. Plastic quality is OK, but not up to original G1 snuff.

Those complaints aside, where else are you going to get an official legit version of G1 Piranhacon for $59? Really, it's not all that different from getting the "Collection" releases of the G1 toys where there was the occasional remolding of parts here and there (Jazz's and Bumblebees's faces for example).

Just found Reveal the shield Jazz and Tracks. Man there is some serious G1 love from both these guys. I hope reprolabels dose some G1 style labels for these guys cuz Tracks needs a much better flame deco on his hood.

I also picked up one of those new counterfeit Henkei Thundercracker's at KOtoys. The quality is ok. Not bad for a bootleg really. A little flimsy, but most hasbro TFs are too.

It has to do with the Botcon box set that had Thundercracker, Dirge and Thrust. Hasbro didn't initially want to make main stream releases of said figures because it would devalue that set. Taka/tomy made their own versions of Thrust and Dirge (Different from molds from the Botcon versions). So Hasbro decided to release the Henkei molds in the US. Weather or not Thundercracker will see an official release is unknown. The Botcon version is too expensive and doesn't looks so nice. The Henkei version was an exclusive of some kind and is also rather pricey. So a Thundercracker stand in for $30 was an awesome buy.

Jazz is indeed very awesome. I am quite picky on collecting Classics and end up not having that many of them, but Jazz sure raised the bar on look and design. Aside the chest not locking well in place, everything else on the design is superb. However, Hasbro is kind of stupid in painting the lower arm white (instead of using white plastic) and allowed some really bad QC in quite a few that I've seen and opened (bad paint smudges, missing paint, loose joints, crooked rub symbol...etc, the usual).

Great design, very flawed execution. But if you got luck or managed to fix all the loose joints, Jazz is one cool dude. One of the best and very articulated Classics. Looks like Kohl's is having a 30% OFF this week on TFs, and got a replacement last night for only $9.99 after discount. Sweet.

I received my Predaking reissue today, and, uh, there's good and there's bad.

The bad:
- The box looks nice before you open it. After you open it...not so. It lacks inner packaging beyond thin clear plastic trays for the toys. The cardboard is not very good quality.
- Takara's promotional pics must have been of entirely painted toys: the metallic plastics are clearly less glossy and metallic than on the box pictures. In fact, the black, silver, and red plastic (and some of the gold plastic) looks very cheap and fragile, with ugly swirls in it. The difference is so blatant it borders on false advertising.
- Whoever applied the factory applied stickers did so crappily. Some stickers are crooked, while others have not been pressed down well. Worse, it's not possible to correct the factory stickers' application, as they are thinner and more fragile than the stickers on the sticker sheets and will therefore tear if you try to remove them. :( The sticker on Tantrum's chest looks like whoever applied it was drunk at the time...
- Some parts are very tight, others are very loose.
- Quality control seems to be lacking. Some detended joints don't click properly, Razorclaws lion head popped off because he was wrongly assembled, and I think I cracked Predaking's left shoulder joint just by inserting Divebomb.

The good:
- It's Predaking!
- Tantrum and Headstrong are better toys than they appear to be. They have quite good arm articulation, which counterbalances the immobile legs. The other three toys have less arm articulation, but better leg articulation.
- The gold color is nice (except for some swirls), and the paint applications are excellent.
- The sticker sheets are excellent quality: thick metallic stickers that adhere well and follow shapes easily. An additional sticker sheet is included if you want to give your Predacons red eyes.
- Tech Spec cards for each Predacon are included.
- The instruction sheet is clear and printed on good quality paper.
- Diecast.
- Guns and swords fit well, parts fit well in general.

Bah, it's about on par with HasTak's regular (non-collector) releases. However, compared to the last expensive collector's grade Takara product I bought (which would be e-Hobby exclusives and Masterpiece Exkaiser/DragonKaiser - a few years back) it is kind of a letdown.

Edit: Okay, I am checking other written reviews from people who actually have the toy in hand (and aren't reacting to pictures they saw on the web), and the comments on the toy are similar to what I noticed. But apparently those issues were also present on the original.
I'm only wondering why so many people seem to think the gold is painted on or chromed - it's simply gold plastic with gold stickers here and there... O_o;

I also got Predaking and mine's okay. No misassembled anything, stickers look alright. Some of the joints were EXTREMELY tight. I never had a Predaking before so I couldn't figure out if you were supposed to spread Razorclaw's legs to attach the Predaking legs. Finally I just yanked really hard on them and they came out and it worked. Huh.

The only thing that is not super tight on mine is the Predaking shoulder joint made out of Divebomb. I mean, it's still tight in the socket, but if you lay it down on a flat surface with the arm sticking straight out in front of Predaking, the arm is going to swing down like a wrestler slapping the mat. Kind of weird.

The other shoulder is super tight.

It was also kind of hard getting one of little robot's fists out of the arm but I forget which one it was. I would say the quality if this reissue is a little below my Encore Omega Supreme and Sky Lynx (which seemed perfect), but not bad. I definitely prefer the gold plastic and gold painted diecast sections to the yellow on the original. I'm glad it turned out to not be chrome, because while it looks like, I always seem to ding up or get wear on chrome parts.

If I had to pick a favorite Predacon, it's probably Rampage the puma. Nice looking in both modes, fun little transformation. Divebomb the bird is also pretty cool except for his weird bib thing for his head. Tantrum the bull is the only really shitty one. His robot looks dumb. His arms are SO STUPID. I do like his goofy bull mode with the horns though. Headstrong the rhino is not technically the best, but his ENTIRE BACK in rhino mode is metal. Love it.

The diecast IS a bit of a problem in combined mode, though. I think that much weight from metal is probably why the Divebomb arm slaps the mat that way. Perhaps if it's left in Predaking mode for a long time the joints will eventually weaken?

Do the shoulder joints have any play in them in that you can move the pegs on Rampage and Divebomb in and out of the joint a bit without disconnecting them? The joint design is different than on the Scramble City combiners.
What I noticed on Divebomb's joint is that it is possible to rotate the shoulder peg without rotating the square peg hole with it (which is why I thought I broke it). Doing so makes the arm very floppy.

My previously reissued Predaking actually had a left arm socket so tight that even cranking it with all my strength couldn't get it to move. I had to take it apart and shave down the ratchets with a hobby knife in order to get it to rotate at all. The right arm is nice and tight with no trouble rotating, however. Just seems like perhaps the molds for the left arm joint are kinda wonky.

Sanjeev Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, anyway, Wreckgar looks cool, but I wanna
> know if you can buy two and make him ride himself.
> And not in the way Gcrush would make 'em do.

I was going to get all indignant about your comment. But then I realized how accurate it was. To know me is to love me.

All is love. Love is one. Unless it is two motorcycle robots riding one another. If Wreckgar is to know itself, it must also love itself.

Alternate transformations:
- Combined mode looks so much better if you slide out Razorclaw's arms (leave the fists collapsed). It widens Predaking's upper body, and allows you to fold Razorclaw's front beast mode legs up, which in turn allows Divebomb's wings to sit at the right angle on Razorclaw's back while the wings' peg can be inserted properly.
- Rampage's beast mode front legs can be folded up in robot mode, filling out his back and giving his legs a larger movement range.
- The guns don't seem to be matched with the correct Predacon when you look at how they fit. Tantrum's guns (as indicated in the instructions) don't fit his hands well, as the rear half of the guns interfere with the shape of his arms - some of the other guns fit better.
- It is possible to fit the handguns to Tantrum's and Headstrong's beast modes. For Tantrum, just peg them into the hands backwards (they'll point up). For Headstrong, fold out the arms and attach the guns to the underside of each hand. You should be able to fold the arms along the legs perfectly.

Strange things in the toys' design:
- Alternate transformations for Rampage and Predaking above are likely how they should have been - they just work too well.
- Divebomb's wings backpack's intakes are...weird. It's like they added a piece to the molding to restrict the movement of the wings. If you look at the wing root joints, you can see they are supposed to have some more movement range due to the way the ratchet joint is made.
- Rampage seems to have a waist joint that has been rigged to be non-functional.
- Rampage and Razorclaw have a lot of movement range in their beast mode paws that is completely useless in beast mode. However, if their front legs had been designed slightly different (like, by removing the forward part of the leg at the joints joining them to the body...), the larger movement range of the paws would have been useful.
- Tantrum's handguns fit (too) perfectly into the lower screw holes of his front beast mode legs. Too bad the holes are on the wrong side of the legs, but it's probably possible to swap the legs to make this actually work.
- Headstrong has two peg holes just in front of his beast mode shoulders that seem to be the perfect size to attach his handguns...except the beast mode shoulders interfere.

Finally got my hands on Tracks and G2 OP. Both are fairly nice figs, but the rub symbol bit isn't all that fabulous. The figures are missing something visually when they don't have their proper symbols. So, I'll definitely be stripping off the one from Tracks and adding a regular symbol there, or actually ponying up the funds for the Reprolabels kit for him. Don't like the "flames" he's got on his hood as it is. They're pretty damn lame. G2 OP needs symbols badly as well. Otherwise, they are nice fun toys. Glad to have them!

No real interest in Skyhammer, but that Warpath looks AWESOME! I just wish (like most nerds, I'm sure!) he had just two tank treads instead of four. I know it's very rare for a two-tread tank design to make for a cool robot mode, but I can't kept but keep hoping...

There are ways of doing it. I'd guess those ways would involve more tooling than they're allowed for one figure. Anyway, Warpath looks particularly nice otherwise. They got the feel of the character down right. Color is dead on, and even the tank cannon winds up shortened a good deal, just as I remember from the cartoon. Hasbro's really clicking on all (well, most at least) cylinders right now.

I don't care how many sets of tracks there are, I'd much rather they actualy work. That they arn't just molded detail, that the tank can roll around on them. And they don't need to come off/get disconnected between modes.

That said this Warpath figure, as its designed, looks like it has the potential (with some tweeks) to have 4 sets of working tracks. Which impresses me more than most tank transformers.

I just scored Generations WheelJack, Thundercracker, and Kup. All I have to say is Thundercracker is one of the nicest looking TF's ever. The silver paint is in a class all of its own, it's practically chrome. The blue colored plastic is the most vibrant blue I've even seen. Hell of a note to finish the classics/Universe/Generations seekers on.

Wheeljack blows Tracks out of the water! The alt-mode looks so much better, and bot mode has a lot more character to it than tracks. Which is strange considering they're the same mold.

Kup is neat, wish he were a little more beat-up. I'm going to get those i-gear heads for him, the Hasbro sculpt isn't so nice.

Perceptor turned out pretty good, but only if you managed to fix its flaws. The backpack is very tricky to lock (locking the short black hinge tab on the retracting grey neck post) and wasn't even mentioned clearly on the United instruction sheet. Then, you have to use superglue trick on another red tab underneath the packpack, as well as making sure the shoulder teal hinges are tight. With all that going, your Perceptor will be a rock solid figure in robot mode, without having the floppy issue that many complained.

Here is my United version, combined with the few chrome parts from the US release. Best of both worlds, and makes Perceptor a quite handsome bot (borrowed WFC Prime's rifle). The paintjob on United makes a world of difference, and got rid of the funny yellow clear plastic the US one has. If money is not an issue, get both and combine the parts. I think the result is well worth the effort. Even the Season 3 red gang said so. :D